OK, here's tha story. I have a 43,000 mile old TGD but it is a 1.9.
I want to upgrade it by reshelling my TZDT into it. How do I go about the legal aspects of this without being hit by my insurers for a modified car, and what bits must I change? Does anybody here know? Thanks guys.

As far as the insurance goes I don`t think there`s any way round it. Being honest I wouldn`t even contemplate not telling them, though I`m not implying you would.
If you have a crash and the insurance and or police investigate (and one of them will) you`ll be in trouble. Even if it`s not your fault the other person`s insurers will check and they won`t need any excuses not to pay out. You may not want to hear this but you`d be better off finding a solid TZTD and swapping your better bits on to it. Keep the old one for parts or just sell complete to someone.
Even if you upgrade the brakes to better than factory and the suspension, wheels etc with it it`s still modified and they don`t like that.
The last plan would be to find a `modified friendly` insurance company as usually found in the MaxiPants boy racer magazines you see festooning the shelves of your local newsagents-assuming the Chavs don`t beat you there and you wear a balaclava and dark glasses when you buy it to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with people who make 23 foot long boot spoilers out of cast off bits of Meccano.

I insure my 16V for around A$300 a year for an insured value of A$10,000 (yes, that's TEN Thousand!!)
I have just also insured my home and contents and they were A$200 a year cheaper than my previous pack of assholes I was using and as a bonus that was for an extra $40,000 on the house, an extra $20,000 on the contents and a bonus $10,000 for car related stuff as I'm considered a car enthusiast and that's all they insure.
As an additional bonus, I pay the lot via a bank transfer monthly and they charge no more for the service.
Shannon was a car enthusiast himself and knew what was missing in the market as he used to run a Car Auction mainly for prestige and sports cars so worked out a deal with a company to undrwrite it all.
They are a great company to deal with; never heard a bad word against them. Shannon himself dies a couple of years ago and everybody was woried it might all go pearshaped but it's maintained its reputation to such an extent, that last year a large Insurance group merged with it. This group do only specialised policies such as this, pensioners insurance, business insurance etc, but all run as seperate entities and they went to great lengths to keep their clientele, so hopefully it will stay as it is, but as I say, it's a wonder someone over there hasn't done something similar given the success of this one.

Alan S

By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.

No, that is not the point. I have no intention of building a modified car or cheating my insurers. I wish to exchange the bodyshell on the car I have.
There is a place for this on the V5 so it has to be possible to do this and retain the identity of the original car.

its not a hard thing to do as you will be keeping same manufacturers engine and lowering capacity! Sticking a 1.7TD into a 1.9 shell is possibly the easiest way to do it insurance wise. Convert it, then tell the insurance company, it WILL probably list as a modified car unless you tell them its the same specs as say a TZD 1.7TD . The problem is finding an insurer that is happy to do this, there a few out there and given your learned age you shouldn't have any problems doing it, i think in your case there will be no difference in cost simpl changing a few details on a computer.

Most insurers do not require a certificate of conversion, infact the ones i deal with generally aren't too worried about how its done! Once this is done you need to tell the DVLA, fill in the capacity change on the V5 and send it off, costs nothing, is usually quite quick believe it or not!

To be honest its pretty easy to do, only restriction is the insurance company really!

It has just stopped being an Issue! I wondered how much it would cost to insure it as a modified vehicle.
Adrian Flux is the best known insurer of these so I called them.
Because I AM A MEMBER OF AN OWNER'S CLUB, my premium rises from £35 a month to £20. Yep! I'll be saving £15 a month. They will need proof of membership of an owner's club. I daresay that a simple letter signed by an organiser will do so if you are modding your car, that's the way to do it

Yes I wanted to post about this - Adrian Flux offer substantial discounts for members of owners' clubs. All they require is a membership number. I wonder whether it is worth setting up a register and issuing membership numbers for this club? Do any of the more club-experienced members know what's involved in establishing a club that will have legal entity where insurers are concerned?

I didn't insure with them in the end, as their charges for paying in instalments were much higher than other quotes I got, although the premium was about the same.

I made the mistake of attempting to declare my engine swap Tom, its a rocky road indeed, most phone operators in the insurance business go to work by bus and are cerebrally challenged, they cannot tell the difference between someone fitting a V8 nitrous injected lump and someone fitting an externally identical engine, ask me how I know
Stewart

it doesn't actually matter what engine you swap too and from its simply an engine conversion and they really dont get to chose as its the under writters who do the dirty, hence me going from a 1905cc GTi 16v 166bhp to a 1.7TD 86bhp actually increases my insurance significantly!

If you want to get a modified french/european car insured go speak to HIC as they have by far the lowest prices, but don't bother trying to make a claim as you wont ever get anywhere! Flux however i find are a load of crap, im a paid up member for one of the 'flagship' clubs, but not only are they WAY more expensive than HIC but because i'm a student and i might take the car near a student campus they have refused to insure me! I guess to an insurance company that makes sence!

Tom - I think so far as the DVLA are concerned you simply give them the new engine number and any other changes that have taken place. To change the model is probaly too difficult as this is probably coded to the Vin number and so long as the insurers know I don't see that it makes much difference.

Does that mean your smart red estate is coming to the end of its natural life?

Sounds like this Adrian Flux is similar to Shannons I posted about above.
I got accepted because I was a member of "Aussiefrogs" but they knocked back a friend of mine who is "mature" has a clean driving record and drives a Pug 405 SR and wouldn't go 10,000 klms per annum. They wouldn't even talk about anyone under 29 to one of my sons on even general car club membership, but when he entered his BX 16V series one at an 'Historic' Hillclimb and is a member of an Historic Car Club that is heavily involved in competitions, he received an invitation to insure (all) his cars within a month. The fact that Shannons were sponsors of the hillclimb, naturally helped.
Mentioning this because there seems to be several common denominators between there and here when it comes to insurance.

Alan S

P.S. I think you could rightly claim to be a "Founding Member" of "BX Club.co.uk" and prove it with your membership number and a URL if necessary.

By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.